


It's Nerf or Nothin'

by Wisteria_Leigh



Series: Prompted Works [25]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Minor Injuries, Monmouth Manufacturing, Post-Canon, The Barns (Raven Cycle), Tumblr Prompt, nerf guns, this is truly ridiculous, why does anyone trust me to write things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 12:24:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20115073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wisteria_Leigh/pseuds/Wisteria_Leigh
Summary: “You. You are the worst, most obnoxious person I’ve ever met.”“That’s not an apology.”





	It's Nerf or Nothin'

**Author's Note:**

> VERY PATIENT Anon on Tumblr prompted: "Shit, are you bleeding?!" from a prompt list long since buried in my feed because it took me so dang long to write this.

The Great and Terrible Nerf Gun War of 2014 begins one cold, rainy evening in spring, when Ronan unearths a Nerf SuperMAXX 3000 from one of the junk barns in Singer Falls and brings it to unofficial friday movie night (as opposed to Official Friday Movie Night when all members are expected to be present and Gansey prepares snacks and both Ronan and Henry are forbidden from speaking during the film so as neither intentionally nor accidentally spoil the film.)

The rules are simple: the person who is hit the most in one 24 hour period is out. If there’s a tie, no one is out, and the war continues into the next day. No attacks while sleeping, or while in the shower (because Ronan would _ absolutely _forgo showering if it meant winning, and biological warfare is a crime condemnable by the United Nations). No attacks in public places (yards of homes and vast expanses of forests inclusive). No shooting the driver of a car while the car is turned on. No cheating. 

This is an absolutely, positively, 100% objectively _ terrible _ idea, for reasons so numerous it would be a book in and of itself. It is their youth and naivety that compel them to proceed. A steadfast faith that bonds of friendship can survive any battle. A conviction that those among them are of a different breed; that they can handle the responsibility of a Nerf Blaster with compassion, with respect for their fellow man; and that this will be _ fun _because they are all Very Mature Adults. 

They are wrong. 

####

Gansey nearly wets himself the first time Ronan “Possessed by the Vengeful Ghosts of 1000 Irish Guerilla War Heroes” Lynch charges at him - nerf guns blazing, mud streaked beneath his eyes, bandana wrapped around his forehead, screaming a war cry that is very possibly Irish but is most likely just gibberish - from down the hall of the Barns, back when this was a _ fun _game and not the 100 Years War. 

Ronan shoots without aiming, because when your opponent is frozen in fear as you _ run screaming at them like a fucking rabid animal unleashed _there’s a good chance you’ll hit them no matter your skill. 

Adam, on the other hand, is completely unphased by Ronan’s tactics. Because Adam Parrish turns into a cold, calculating robot when in war. Even when Ronan manages to get the upper hand - which is mostly by luck - Adam will always scheme, plot, and plan until he gets him back. 

Ronan is also 99.4% certain Adam is modding his nerf gun to fire faster, possibly also harder. But unless he _ catches _ him doing it, he can’t call foul play, which is fucking _ stupid, _ but then again he _ did _ get disqualified from the last Nerf Gun War when _ Gansey _ unfairly accused him for playing fast and loose with the firing-in-a-moving-vehicle clause (he shot Gansey the second he turned off the Pig, but Gansey said it happened _ before _ the car was off) and since no one was there to witness it, and no one likes Lynch’s _ aggressive _ play style, he’s voted out of the game and he vows that his tombstone will read _ Here Lies Ronan Niall Lynch, Hung for Crimes He Did Not Commit. _

“Which is offensive as fuck to the people who have _ actually _been killed by false accusations, you overprivileged white boy,” Blue tells him. But whatever, he’s a scorned man, he’s allowed some melodrama. 

Gansey, Cheng, and Blue are all knocked out of the bracket within a week, in that order. Which leaves Parrish and Lynch.

It is in this moment, sitting on the couch, as Blue appears to announce her defeat, that Gansey’s eyes grow wide and he says, very softly, “we have made a huge mistake.”

####

Ronan and Adam have been in a deadlock for...honestly, no one can remember the exact amount. No one can remember the time _ before _the war. No one knows peace anymore. Blue tried declaring that she will no longer be hanging out with them as long as this continues, but unfortunately Gansey doesn’t have the same boundaries and Monmouth is much quieter and full of far fewer nosy people than Fox Way, so she has no choice but to deal with them. 

They’ve had a few day’s reprieve, because Ronan requested Sundays off for religious observance and Adam’s been stretched as thin as can be between work and Aglionby. They think that maybe, _ just maybe, _one of them has gotten bored (probably Ronan) or that their need for intimate physical contact will outweigh their need to win (probably Adam) after a few days of rest. Gansey announces an Official Movie Night, just in case they’re right. 

It’s meant to be a chill evening. A relaxing evening. An evening decidedly absent of Nerf products.

Blue, Gansey, and Cheng are on the couch, eating popcorn and scrolling through Netflix to find an acceptable film, when Ronan throws his bedroom door open, eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring, a hunter on high alert. 

“What the hell is _wrong _with you?” Blue says. 

“Parrish is here,” he whispers. 

And sure enough, there he is. Adam’s hand remains on the doorknob, knuckles curled loosely to either close it at a moment’s notice or flee. He stares, expression blank and absolutely deadly, at Ronan, whose lips curl into an alpha wolf’s snarl, defending his territory from intruders. 

These stand-offs usually last long enough that even the cricket chorus living on Monmouth’s ground floor, the grumbling pipes, and the old fridge that spends all day moaning while it barely keeps the food from growing e.coli fall silent. Those caught in the crossfire - or cross_ couch, _as is most often where Blue, Gansey, and Cheng sit - can do nothing except wait for the first draw, the first shot, the inevitable chaos of battle to begin once more. 

“I’m sorry, aren’t you two _ dating _?” Henry exclaims. 

“Conflict is a healthy part of any relationship,” Adam says, quiet in the same way a serial killer is quiet. 

“Love and war and all that shit,” Ronan growls back. 

Adam shoots first. Hits square in the chest. He bolts back out the door before Ronan can finish his long string of expletives while tripping over his own bootlaces scrambling after him, as Blue yells at Gansey, “Did you not _ tell _them this was a truce night?!” and Gansey cries back, “you said they’d have kissed and made up by now!”

Adam left the Hodoyota door open (he was planning this all along, that _f__ucker_), and Ronan bursts from the warehouse howling like a goddamn berserker just as Adam slips into the driver’s seat and simultaneously shuts the door while buckling his seatbelt. 

The passenger’s side back seat window is open. From when Adam drove them all to Nino’s the other day - the Pig was leaking something and the BMW was at the Barns - because the Shitbox doesn’t have AC and it was 95 degrees plus 94% humidity. Adam has forgotten about it, and the car is not on yet. 

There are two certainties in life: everyone dies, and the Shitbox will not turn on with just one try. 

Adam watches as Ronan races to the backseat of the car and he looks in the rearview mirror to the open backseat window and his face drops like an anvil out of a penthouse suite. Ronan’s smile is batshit, absolutely out-of-his-mind insane, and this goddamn piece of shit car just _ Won’t. _ It revs. _ Turn. _ It revs. _ On. _

Ronan manages to get his nerf gun in the open window.

“Don’t you da--”

The dart hits his hand on the gear shift. The car coughs to life. 

Ronan laughs maniacally, wooping and yelling in the parking lot as Adam points at him and yells, “that was fucking _ lucky _and you know it!” before pulling back onto the road and driving the speed limit all the way back to St. Agnes. 

The game lives on for yet another day. 

####

They are banned from continuing this war at Monmouth. 

“We think it wise for you two to sort this out elsewhere,” Gansey says. 

“I’m tired of this competitive hypermasculinity bullshit,” Blue says. 

“Think of the _ children, _” Henry says. 

“Until you can settle this, you are disinvited from Official Movie Nights,” Gansey says with a wobble in his chin, as if this is the single hardest thing he’s ever had to say in his entire, gilded life. He thinks revoking this privilege will bring them to their senses. 

Instead, they take their battles to the Barns and miss two weeks worth of movie nights. 

####

It’s late. Ronan is not expecting Adam to come to the Barns after Boyd’s, which is exactly why Adam stops by. Ronan is making Easy Mac in the kitchen. Adam knocks on the door, the same staccato pounding Ronan uses at St. Agnes, just so when he opens the always-unlocked door and starts firing at him Ronan doesn't think he’s an actual home invader (he doesnt _ think _Ronan has a shotgun in this house, but honestly, he’d rather not find out.) 

And it works exactly as he hopes it would, because Ronan doesn’t have his gun near him, so Adam fires and hits his arm as Ronan curses violently and turns to run down the hallway. 

Adam fires again. The Nerf dart hits Ronan in the back, which in and of itself is not a service-ending injury. Ronan probably hardly feels it, to be honest. It’s the fact that he isn’t _ expecting _ it, that Adam’s victorious shout and the little pop of the gun startles him at just the right moment to make him misstep and stumble, and he can’t stop because he’s got too much momentum and his socks have no traction on the hardwood, so he slips and slides like a lanky dog on a patch of ice and his flailing arms do nothing except send him even _ more _ off balance until - _ BAM. _ He runs headfirst into the kitchen doorframe and tumbles backwards with a _ thud _ on his ass, face in his hands, yelling, “Jesus _ motherfucking _ shit-sucking goddamn _ christ, _ ” which sounds _ nothing _like it’s supposed to with his nose and mouth covered by fists. 

Adam has never, in his entire life, laughed so fucking hard. He’s wheezing, doubled over as his stomach cramps, as he honestly wonders if this will make him wet himself, because he’s lost all control of his body. All he can think is Ronan, eyes wide, arms flapping, slipping across the floor and it replays over and over and he can’t stop. He’s crying and Ronan is cursing up a goddamn storm, probably two foul adjectives away from raising Aurora _ and _ possibly Jesus from their graves to admonish him for such foul use of language in her house and in his name, and it’s not until Adam peeks through his teary eyes and sees a river of crimson squeezing through Ronan’s fingers that he realizes, “oh, _ shit, _are you bleeding?”

“Of _course _ I’m fucking bleeding you shitstain, I _ ran into a fucking door.” _

“Technically it was the doorframe,” Adam says, and there it is, there’s the reminder that brings it all back once more and he’s giggling uncontrollably again and Ronan is still cursing and rolling back and forth like a beetle stuck on its back. 

It takes him a few more minutes before he’s composed and can look at Ronan’s face without bursting into laughter. Then, he helps Ronan up and leads him to the bathroom. He gets a towel and instructs Ronan to hold it to his nose, and fills another hand towel with ice. 

Ronan flops on the toilet seat cover like a petulant child, glaring at Adam as he moves Ronan’s hand to place a makeshift ice pack on the bridge of his nose.

“Doesn’t look bruised,” Adam notes, much more serious now. “Or broken.” 

“It better not be. This is the fucking money maker.”

Adam makes a noise. “If that’s true, then you’re gonna be poor regardless.” 

“Asshole.” 

Adam replies with a dry smile. He takes the bloodied towel from Ronan and hands him a fresh one. His nose is still bleeding, but it’s gone from geyser to steadily-flowing stream, so that’s progress. Adam’s watching Ronan’s face carefully, his brow furrowed as Ronan rearranges the ice-and-towel combination. Ronan can’t tell what he’s thinking. 

They sit in silence for a while, Adam’s mouth pulling into a tighter and tighter line and blood soaks through the blush pink hand towel. 

When it finally stops bleeding, Ronan throws the towel in the bathtub. Keeps the ice, because his face still hurts, and because he doesn’t trust that there’s not at least a little bit of a bruise somewhere. 

Adam’s brow is still wrinkled as he scrubs his hands in the sink. Ronan kicks his ankle. “Stop,” he says. 

Adam looks at him. “Stop what? This?” He shakes his hands, and splatters Ronan with water. “I don’t want your blood germs on my hands, Lynch.” 

“First of all, how dare you. Second, stop with the- the- the _ moping _.” 

“Moping?”

“Yeah, the moping.”

“I’m not moping.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Adam looks wholly confused now. “What are you talking about?” 

“This!” Ronan gestures to his face. “This isn’t your fault, so stop giving yourself shit about it. I can see it in your eyes. You’re being a dick to yourself for this.” 

Adam blinks a few times. “I know it’s not my fault.”

Ronan pauses. “What?”

Adam rolls his eyes. “Nerf darts aren’t even hard enough to send a _ baby _toppling over. You fell because you were stupid and wore socks on hardwood during a war. I mean, talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.” 

Ronan stares at him. 

“I wasn’t ‘_moping’. _”

“Then why the fucking face?”

“I was _ thinking _.” 

Ronan sneers in disgust. Adam gives him a dead-eyed look. “I was trying to remember the mixture for getting blood out of clothes. I don’t want you to have to throw these towels away. They’re nice.” 

“So you’re not, like…” Ronan gestures, vaguely, “by all this?” 

Ronan’s miming skills leave something to be desired, but Adam understands. 

“No, I’m not triggered by all this. Why would I be? You hurt _ yourself. _”

“I mean, it was a little bit your fault,” Ronan grumbles. 

“Are you _ serious_?” 

“I’m just saying, you could be a little bit sorry about it!” 

Adam throws his hands in the air, and says, “You _ just told me _ to stop feeling bad about it and now you want me to _ feel bad _about it?” 

“You didn’t need to be so fucking _ whatever _about it, is all.”

Adam looks at him for a moment, and then shakes his head with a laugh. “You. You are the worst, most obnoxious person I’ve ever met.” 

“That’s not an apology.”

Adam groans so loud it echoes down the hall. “_Fine. _ I’m sorry I hit you with the _ winning shot _that highlighted your complete lack of coordination. Happy?”

“_Thank _you. Oh, and also,” Ronan pulls a nerf gun out from beside the toilet. “Not the winning shot.” 

He fires. The suction dart hits Adam square in the forehead, and stays there. 

No one breathes. No one moves. 

The cuckoo clock in the living room sings for midnight. 

The spell is broken with laughter, breathy at first, with disbelief, and then raucous, both of them doubled over and cackling until they both end up on the floor of the bathroom with their backs against the tub, rubbing tears from their eyes and coughing out the last giggles. 

“I think,” Adam says after they’ve caught their breath, “that it’s time for a peace treaty.” 

“Seconded,” Ronan says. 

They shake on it, and seal it with a kiss.


End file.
